


Tapestry

by sylviaviridian



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 05:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 8,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6182761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylviaviridian/pseuds/sylviaviridian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An epic is a tapestry of many stories woven together, and truth is a constellation with no star brighter than another. These are the stories of the salvation of Aselia, from a perspective outside the protagonists’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Iselia - Botta

**Author's Note:**

> This is a long-term project. To be honest, I don't know how fast it'll update, or how long it'll take to finish, given that I, uh, started this years ago, and just rewrote the first seven chapters to match with my current writing style. But I'm putting it up here anyway, and now that I've made this progress I'm going to really try (this time I swear) to keep up with working on it. Characters will be added to the tags as more show up - and there _will_ be more.
> 
> Originally, this project began as a desire to essentially retell the plot of Symphonia from the perspective of the Renegades. As I began plotting and outlining it, though, I realized that it would be more interesting if I included the viewpoint of the Grand Cardinals and the Desians in general as well. And from there, it was only another short hop to deciding to include chapters for _all_ the antagonists, and upon further reflection, interludes from non-hostile NPCs. So that's where we are now, and I think it'll be an interesting ride.

“Is everyone ready?” Botta looked over his squad who stood outside the gates of Iselia with weapons drawn, glancing at each one by one and confirming that everything was in order. “We need to make a good show of this.” Forcystus and the local Desians wouldn’t be fooled for long, of course, but the more the people of Iselia believed that the town had been attacked by Desians, the longer the Renegades and their role could remain hidden from the world at large.

“Ready, sir!” Vidarr saluted, and the others followed suit smartly, the metal in their gauntlets clanking as it tapped their face-concealing helmets. Only Botta was without a uniform: high-ranking Desians rarely if ever wore the standard gear, and there hadn’t been time to customize one of the Iselia Ranch uniforms. “Lead the way, and we’ll be back at the base in time for dinner!”

Botta smiled at the show of enthusiasm. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he warned. Vidarr was right, though: despite the importance of it, this mission wasn’t expected to take long. A march through the town as a show of force, then a short hike up to the Martel Temple in the mountains, where the Chosen should be receiving the Oracle. Once there, they wouldn’t be leaving anyone alive to witness their departing on Rheairds rather than returning to the Iselia Ranch.

Schooling his features into a cold scowl, Botta led them down the road toward the town. Their first encounter was with a pair of guards at the gate, who somewhat-shakily brandished their weapons as they saw enemies approaching. “Stand aside,” Botta ordered them sternly, in the tone of someone who expected to be obeyed without needing to explain himself.

“W-what do you Desians want?” one of them asked, holding a rather shoddy-looking spear at the ready, frightened gaze flickering from one armored soldier to another. “We...we have a non-aggression treaty, you know!”

“Stand _aside_ , and no one here will be hurt,” Botta insisted, and gestured to the soldiers behind him, though he could see from the guards’ expressions that the motion was wholly unnecessary. “If you won’t, I’ve certainly brought enough force to make you.”

The guard who had spoken seemed to waver for a moment...but then his resolve strengthened. “N-no,” he said clearly, still trembling slightly, but standing bravely in their path nonetheless. “I won’t let you hurt the village!”

His courage was admirable, and something in Botta wished he could set aside his role and commend the man for it. Unfortunately, they were going to have to break him, instead. “I don’t have time for this,” he growled, as if the villagers were no more than a nuisance to his schedule. “Vidarr?”

Vidarr took his cue and stepped forward, stretching to his full intimidating height. While the guard frantically scrambled to find an opening, he swung one massive fist and knocked the man sideways into the nearby fence, where he lay gasping and winded. Botta nodded in satisfaction, and turned to the other guard. Wordlessly, the man backed away, trembling as he lowered his pitchfork, which earned him a cold, mirthless smile from Botta.

“Your cooperation will be remembered,” he told the standing guard smugly, noting the man’s lowered gaze and reddened cheeks with satisfaction - with any luck, the man would be ashamed enough of his actions today that he would stand and fight if the village was truly attacked. ...Either way, they weren’t his soldiers to train, and he had a mission to complete. With a curt nod to his Renegades, Botta strode forward through the gate, leading the march through the tiny, peaceful village whose only fleeting claim to importance was the presence of the Chosen bloodline, and the temple which lay beyond it.

Once they were in the village proper, most of the reactions were the same. Although Vidarr had to knock a few more villagers aside, it seemed the majority of them were content to lock their doors and peer fearfully through the curtains, and the Renegades were able to reach the other side of the town largely unopposed. The town gate leading toward the temple was neither locked nor guarded - there were no dangers besides a few weak monsters that could even come from that direction, with cliffs and dense forest making the area largely impassable - and so they proceeded onward to their next destination without further delay.

As they made the short hike to the temple, through sunlit forest and along a cliff with a lovely view of the sea, Botta could hear a few of the foot soldiers behind him grumbling about the need to walk. It was true that they could have easily flown to the temple by Rheiard, but the point wasn’t only to reach the temple: if they weren’t seen on the way there, even the sleepy village of Iselia might start to wonder how the Desians managed to get from the Ranch to the temple without being seen. Forcystus, the leader of the local Human Ranch, was unfortunately not an unreasonable man, all things considered - he’d proven himself willing to talk to the villagers enough to develop a non-aggression treaty, and he might be willing to work with them to explain about and go after the Renegades as well. Setting the village firmly against the Desians by leaving no possible doubt that the Desians had killed the Chosen One would avert that possibility.

They paused for just a moment in front of the temple, awaiting the signal to proceed. “Stay on your guard,” Botta reminded them. “This is where the real fight begins.” The priests of the temple were trained to protect the Chosen One: while they weren’t soldiers by any means, they weren’t as defenseless as the average villager, either.

And there, right on cue, was the signal: a glowing column of light burst forth from the top of the temple building, continuing upward until it vanished into the heavens, the initial flare so bright they had to shield their eyes from the glare of it. “There it is: that’s the signal for the Oracle. Let’s go!” Botta commanded, and as one they flowed up the steps of the temple to confront the priests there.

The battle was fierce, but brief: whatever training the temple priests had undergone, it hadn’t prepared them for such a sudden attack, and they clearly had no experience with fighting humanoid opponents. No doubt they would have sufficed to walk the Chosen through the carefully planned gauntlet Cruxis had set for her: weak monsters, seal guardians intended only as a test of conviction, and Desians under orders to harass but never harm the Chosen One. In comparison, the seasoned Renegades they now faced were an order of magnitude more deadly than anything they’d trained for, and one by one, they fell under the onslaught.

Botta held the last priestess at swordpoint, an elderly woman who hadn’t been able to pose enough threat to warrant killing. The fear and loathing in her eyes sent a pang of resignation through him: of course, she couldn’t possibly be made to understand that this slaughter had been for the greater good. ...But then again, his frown deepened as he remembered that these priests knew damned well the truth of what they were preparing the girl for. Compared to the fate they’d planned for her, falling to the blades of the Renegades here and now would be a mercy.

“Sir!” Reinald approached him from inside the temple - his assignment had been to avoid the battle entirely in favor of scouting to make sure there weren’t any unexpected surprises, and find where the priests were keeping the Chosen One. “The Chosen isn’t here! They must have evacuated her somewhere!”

Botta scowled as he turned to the old woman, who now had a spark of defiance burning deep in her eyes. “Where is the Chosen?” he demanded of her, brandishing his sword a little closer to her throat.

But even as he spoke the words, a trio of children dashed up the steps toward them: a human boy in a bright red shirt, a younger boy in blue with the telltale mana signature of a half-elf, and the very selfsame Chosen One they’d been searching for. “Run, Colette!” the priestess called, now anxious...though whether for the safety of the girl herself, or only for the possible destruction of their puppet, Botta wouldn’t dare begin to guess.

It didn’t matter: from their expressions and the way the boy in red eagerly drew a pair of swords to confront them, running was the last thing on their minds. Botta hesitated only a moment, while Reinald and Yolan called out to taunt them: the Chosen One was sixteen, they’d said, which was nearly an adult on paper...but her prayer garments made her look heartbreakingly young and innocent. On top of that, he hadn’t wanted to involve the villagers more than necessary - particularly children such as these. The priests, he could discount as enemy combatants, and moreso because they had known what they were doing. No doubt these friends of the Chosen had no idea what fate truly lay ahead of her…

But there was no time to argue, no time for mercy. It was unfortunate, but with their goal in sight now, he couldn’t afford to falter. With a nod from their leader, then, the Renegades struck forward once again, to end this Chosen cycle before it could even properly begin.


	2. Iselia Temple - Remiel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This Journey hasn’t even begun yet and it’s already going wrong. Just goes to show what happens when you trust humans with raising your Chosen One. Remiel’s still going to give it his all, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hate writing for Remiel, but this edit is a lot better than the first version of this chapter.

A hidden signal within the Iselia Temple notified the waiting angel when his appearance would soon be due. They couldn’t afford the mana drain of cameras to watch the altar where the Chosen One’s Cruxis Crystal lay, so when Remiel teleported in upon receiving the final signal indicating that the room had been entered, he was surprised (as much as an angel could be, at least) to note that, in addition to Lord Kratos Aurion of the Four Seraphim (now in disguise as a simple mercenary willing to aid their journey), the Chosen was accompanied not by her priests, but by a pair of children, a human boy barely older than she was and a half-elven boy who was much younger than either.

It seemed Lord Yggdrasill had indeed been correct to send Lord Kratos to support this Journey: not only was it the most important one in several cycles, with a Chosen One who was such a close match to Martel’s mana signature, but it seemed they were already running into troubles, before it had even properly begun. Not that he’d ever had any doubt of Lord Yggdrasill’s correctness - not that he was even capable of such doubts.

He didn’t know what had befallen the priests, but it only demonstrated the inferiority and incompetence of these useless humans even as tools to be used to reach the goals of their betters. Still, at least they’d done one thing correctly: the Chosen One had arrived to meet her destiny. Everything else was irrelevant.

As he began his slow descent, he heard the half-elven boy babble something about him being the Chosen One’s true father. It wasn’t the first time that rumor had circulated, of course, though it had been some time since the last… The idea of his fathering a child on a human woman was, of course, ridiculous and disgusting…but this Journey of Regeneration might well be the most important ever, could even lead Cruxis to their final victory at last. With that in mind, any tool he could use to motivate the Chosen One while he took charge of implanting her with the crystal that would drain away her flawed human soul was at least worth some consideration…


	3. Iselia Ranch - Forcystus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forcystus regrets becoming complacent enough to trust humans to do the logical thing and keep a peace treaty. It's long past time to remind them why they should fear the Desians.

Reviewing the tapes of the attack for a third time was not decreasing Forcystus’ seething rage. The eyewitness reports of what had happened were unclear at best, but the video logs painted a very clear picture: these village children had caused entirely too much havoc for there being only two of them.

_I should have known better._ They’d gotten soft, sitting here behind their walls with a treaty protecting them as much as the village. While the humans of the declining world could never pose a serious threat to the Desians as a whole, it generally didn’t stop them from trying, in other parts of the world. Here at the Iselia Ranch, there was less concern about that: surely no one at the village would be so foolish as to endanger the life of the Chosen One by breaking their agreement of mutual isolation and inviting reprisals.

_My biggest mistake was expecting humans to behave like logical beings._ Now that the Chosen’s Journey had just been initiated, it seemed to be making the younger and more foolish villagers unnecessarily bold. Something would definitely have to be done about that: if getting soft and lax in their vigilance was their mistake in this matter, it was one easily rectified by reminding the village why they had wanted that treaty in the first place.

He paused the replay, staring thoughtfully at the boy with the swords who had attacked his soldiers directly. He’d been identified as Lloyd Irving, the adopted son of the dwarven craftsman living in the woods nearby, technically outside the village borders...though of course, he was still subject to their treaty.

_I could have his ‘father’ imprisoned._ Dwarves living on the surface were rare, and although he’d never bothered to look into it too deeply, Forcystus suspected this one to be a runaway from Cruxis. Even if he wasn’t, Cruxis would certainly believe one of their own trusted generals over the word of a suspected runaway...Forcystus could call down the ‘wrath of heaven’ on the dwarf without much effort. _But what of the rest?_ He’d still have to devise a punishment for the half-elven boy, and a reminder to the village that no one could get away with this kind of behavior, just in case any of the others might get ideas.

He unpaused the tape again, and scowled at Lloyd’s leap from the cliff. _It’s just not possible._ There was no way an ordinary human could survive that kind of jump unharmed, but there had been no body or blood at the base of the cliff where he’d landed. _Even with an Exsphere…_ Even Exspheres took time and practice, or certain kinds of stress, to attune to the body - in this environment, unless Lloyd had been training day and night for years, an Exsphere alone shouldn’t allow him to be that strong.

“For years…” he murmured aloud. There was something in that...years ago...an Exsphere… 

And then the memory clicked into place. It wasn’t often, after all, that different Human Ranches ran into jurisdictional overlap...and he never had liked dealing with Kvar much. He strode over to a nearby console, punched the intercom button to speak to his aide. “Kyrian. Are you there?”

“Yes, sir,” the reply came crisply, awaiting orders.

“Dig up the old files on the Angelus Project for me, would you?”

“Right away, sir.” Forcystus’ good eye narrowed at the looping security tape image on the screen. A runaway test subject, a high-ranked member of Cruxis in disgrace after his lover had turned into a monster and forced him to take her life...no doubt it would have been a heartbreaking tragedy, if it hadn’t started with thievery and ended with human idiocy. But the enhanced Exsphere that the test subject had worn had never been recovered...and neither had the body of their son.

_Looks like it’s still growing, just on a new subject. Wouldn’t it just grate wonderfully on Kvar’s nerves if I was the one to hand his pet project over to Lord Yggdrasill in the end?_ But the memory of the incident had given him another idea, as well. “Oh, and Kyrian...find me that human those fools were trying to protect.” He grinned savagely. “I think I know exactly how we’re going to punish them for this insolence.”


	4. Interlude - Phaidra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Phaidra watches Lloyd and Genis leave to follow Colette, she thinks about the fate of the world and her granddaughter's role in it.

The air was still thick with the smoke of burning buildings as Phaidra watched Lloyd and Genis leave the village, and she could almost pretend that her throat was raw from that smoke instead of from the roughness of knowledge she hadn’t been able to find the words to speak. With so much tragedy left in their wake, it seemed too cruel to lay yet more weight on their shoulders...and yet, she knew there was no avoiding their learning the truth. Not now that they had left to pursue her granddaughter.

To aid the Chosen One on her Journey of Regeneration...it was a great honor, but she knew they were too young, too foolish or unambitious to see it that way. _They want to help our Colette, their friend._ All the other villagers had known from the start that Colette was different from them, but Lloyd and Genis had either never noticed or never cared, perhaps because they too were set apart from the others.

It was foolishness, of course, but it was foolishness that, deep down, Phaidra had been grateful for. Her own sister had gone on the Journey, young but eager and resolute from the start. She’d failed her final test - all anyone now remembered was that she’d been killed by the Desians (the same Desians, she recalled with a spark of bitter rage, who had killed the temple priests yesterday, and left Phaidra herself alive only because she was too old and broken to do them any harm). But Phaidra had loved her sister in spite of her failure, had loved her sister and not the Chosen One. And when her granddaughter was called to the same fate, Phaidra had done her duty raising Colette to her path...but she’d also been grateful to those who were able to give Colette a chance to be the little girl she was, even if only now and then.

“Make her last months good ones,” she murmured to the receding figures, once she was sure they were too far away to hear her words. “And...I’m so sorry, children. For everything.” She’d done her best, in the name of the world. One day, she hoped, they might forgive her for that.


	5. Sylvarant Base - Yuan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One human boy should not be able to throw an entire base into chaos, and Yuan Ka-Fai is determined to figure out how one did.

Yuan glared silently at the guard who stood in front of him, watching the man grow increasingly nervous. “You’re telling me he escaped...using magic?”

The guard - Kahin, Yuan thought his name was - nodded, a frantic bobbing of his head to match the bobbing of his adam’s apple as he swallowed hard. “H-he...we didn’t put him in a magic-suppressing cell, sir. We didn’t think we needed to...s-since he was only a human. B-but he burned me from across the room…”

“He doesn’t have magic,” Yuan growled, slamming a hand on his desk. “I would have noticed that when he was standing right in front of me - which, I remind you, he should not have been able to do in the first place!”

“Y-yes, sir!” Kahin cringed, his voice nearly a wail of dismay. “I’m sorry, sir!”

Yuan sighed, aggravated. The story was implausible, but if Kahin hadn’t changed it or slipped up by now, he wasn’t going to. Which unfortunately meant he was probably telling the truth, or at least as much of the truth as he knew. “You’re dismissed. Tell Lyon his training techniques are coming up for review next staff meeting, though.”

“Yes, sir!” Kahin saluted eagerly, nearly knocking his helmet loose, and scrambled for the door with indecorous speed.

Which left Yuan alone to ponder this glaring inconsistency in his story. _Is it_ possible _the boy could have done something like that?_ He didn’t have elven blood at all - not only would Yuan have been able to sense that on him earlier, as he’d said, but Yuan knew without a single doubt who his parents were, and neither of them had a trace of elven blood. _Kratos’ Aionis treatments wouldn’t have passed any trace down to his son, and Anna was never treated with it._ And in any case, although Aionis had a different feel to it than genuine elven descent, Yuan would still have been able to sense it on Lloyd if he were somehow affected by it.

_Then what_ did _he do?_ An old memory surfaced, of humans using magitechnology to toy with mana back during the Kharlan War. _A Sorcerer’s Ring? Impossible. Where would he get one?_ The knowledge to create them had long been lost, and some centuries after that, even the knowledge of how to repair a broken one had faded. Since then, they had gone from being toys of the rich to precious, ancient artifacts, and very few now remained intact. _The only ones I know of now are-_

He groaned suddenly, and let his head fall to the surface of his desk with a loud thump. _...reserved for the Chosen’s Journey of Regeneration. Which, in this world, starts at the Iselia Temple, where we found the kid._ Well, that was that mystery solved, at least, and he’d just picked his head up to rest his forehead in his hands instead, when the door to his office opened once again.

“Long day?” asked Botta’s voice dryly, prompting his leader to look up as he strode into Yuan’s office, moving a little stiffly, to let the door close behind him. “I hope you know you have Lyon frightened, at least.”

“Good,” Yuan replied shortly, not feeling particularly charitable toward his security chief right at the moment. He looked Botta up and down. “...How are your injuries?” The healers had seen to him as soon as possible, of course, and he at least appeared to be walking better now…

Botta grimaced, and sat rather heavily in one of the chairs in front of Yuan’s desk. “As well as can be expected,” he replied. “...I wish I could have been more use.”

Yuan shook his head. “It was over as soon as Kratos knew we had Lloyd,” he admitted. “I can’t fault you for that.” A thought occurred to him, and he made an unpleasant face. “...It’s actually probably better that the kid got out on his own - I don’t want to think about what would happen with one of the Seraphim hacking his way through the base in a fit of rage.”

The stricken look on Botta’s face suggested he agreed with this assessment. “...But of course, that doesn’t mean you’re letting the guards off the hook, either.”

“Not in the least,” Yuan agreed. “Even if it worked out in the end, there are definitely things I’d want to improve on in the case of a future escape.”

Botta nodded in agreement. “...To that end, I have the reports for what happened in the rooms with the mechanical security systems…”

Yuan waved it off. “Lloyd had a Sorcerer’s Ring,” he interjected. “We didn’t plan for that - who would? And I can guess the rest of it: the guards searched the other rooms because they thought the secured rooms would be safe, right?” Off Botta’s resigned nod, he sighed. “...This happens every few years, they forget that those systems are mostly meant to slow intruders down. It’s one of the things I mean to talk to Lyon about.”

“So what do we do now?” Botta asked calmly, setting the mentioned reports on Yuan’s desk for the leader to ignore at his leisure.

“We wait,” Yuan shrugged. “Our backup plan is still in place for dealing with the Chosen. Lloyd will be hard to get at as long as he’s traveling with Kratos, but once the Chosen One is dead, Kratos’ task will be over, and he’ll return to Derris-Kharlan…”

“Leaving Lloyd vulnerable again,” Botta nodded his approval. “As long as Hiroshi’s associate is up to her task, at least.”

“I’ve spoken with her personally - she knows what’s at stake,” Yuan confirmed. “...I wouldn’t go calling her that in front of Hiroshi, though. He lost family in the Volt incident, as I understand. ...In any case, until the Chosen is dead, everything else is business as usual.” He spread a few of the papers on his desk, and slid one out of the pile, picking it up so he could refer to it. “We need more Exspheres. The most recent shipment to Sylvarant has gone to Kvar’s ranch…”


	6. Seal of Fire - Remiel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the Seal of Fire, Remiel muses on his symbolic relationship to the Chosen One.

Rather than sensors inside the temple, the system which alerted Cruxis to the presence of the Chosen One at the seals was, naturally, the biometric sensors in the Oracle Stone at the front. Although Remiel knew it would take them some time to reach the center of the temple, and to defeat the guardian, the manifestation there of the sleeping Efreet’s power, he had no reason not to await their progress. Angels did not grow bored.

Eventually, triggered by the seal’s activation, the cameras in the temple’s central chamber activated, allowing Remiel a view of the children and Lord Kratos’ fight against the seal guardian. These beasts were, of course, intended more as a test of determination than a true deterrent - no one who wasn’t of the Chosen bloodline would be able to enter the temple in the first place, after all. And as a side benefit, the battle would prime the Chosen One’s Hi-Exsphere to more readily accommodate the burst of foreign mana that would shortly be introduced to it.

Soon enough, the beast lowered its head and vanished in a burst of fire mana, leaving the Chosen One free to approach the seal itself. Remiel waited for her to kneel in prayer before making his approach, once again affixing a bland, welcoming smile to his face. He made sure, this time, to emphasize his supposed familial connection to the Chosen One, but she seemed hesitant to acknowledge it on her own side. Still, what mattered was that she had responded to him; like all the Chosen Ones, she’d been taught to accept what she was told without question. It made these inferior beings ever so much easier to work with if they were pliant and docile.

And after all, even if it was a falsehood, it was only a tiny lie to smooth her path...the path to great destiny. This little girl was one of the few humans whose lives could truly be said to have meaning...or would, at least, once she had fulfilled her role and purpose. If a ‘father’ was someone who guided children to become what they were meant to be, then perhaps in some sense, Remiel could be seen as her father. He decided, as with a wave of his hand he triggered the burst of mana that would charge her Hi-Exsphere and begin her transformation, that he liked that interpretation.


	7. Ossa Trail - Sheena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sheena Fujibayashi of Mizuho lies in wait for the Chosen and her companions, determined to save her honor, her village, and her world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "But Sheena's not an antagonist!" She is right now, so she gets a chapter. Two, actually.

Sheena took a deep breath to settle her nerves, held it, let it out slowly. It wasn’t doing much to calm her, nor were any of the traditional meditation exercises she had learned from her grandfather, and practiced almost obsessively in the years since the Volt incident. Nothing else she’d done since then had had quite so much riding on it… even the attempt to make a pact with Volt had been less vital, in the long run, than this mission. How had she, failure that she was, been the one assigned to the assassination of Sylvarant’s Chosen One? To a mission on which hung not only her honor and that of her village, but also the fate of her entire world?

She fiddled idly with the guardian card she’d brought out, holding it prepared for when the small traveling party appeared. Yuan had assured her that they weren’t well-trained - two children and a schoolteacher, plus the Chosen One herself and a mercenary hired to protect the group. Only the latter two should pose any threat, at least in theory. But what if Yuan had overestimated her strength? She didn’t know how old or strong he was, exactly - only that he was a half-elf, and therefore older than he looked. What if he’d misunderstood something about young humans and their capabilities? What if this was all a fool’s errand?

“Sheena,” said a tiny voice beside her ear, and Sheena started as her train of thought was interrupted, turning with a guilty look to her companion Corinne, perched on her shoulder. “Are you worried, Sheena?” he asked, nudging comfortingly at her hair with his nose.

“W-well, yeah,” she acknowledged, a little defensively. “I mean… everything’s riding on this. What if I mess up again?” A pit formed in her stomach at the very thought. She wouldn’t even be able to bring herself to return to her village, if she failed at this. They’d never forgive her… and who could blame them for it? She’d never forgive herself, either, if her weakness doomed her entire world to the decline and suffering she’d witnessed in her short time here. Images flashed through her mind, of Desian raids on Meltokio, Ozette… it wasn’t likely they’d find Mizuho, but they’d probably just burn Sybak, to deprive the humans of all the knowledge they’d gained over the years. And Altamira might be an overly-gaudy resort, but she’d still hate to see the ghost town it would become when the magitech wonders that powered it became unusable.

And then Tethe’alla’s Chosen would have to go on the same journey this one was making. Not, she reminded herself, that she particularly cared about that. It’d probably be good for him to get out of the city and have to camp out a little. ...Really, she just didn’t want to trust him with the fate of the world if she failed.

“It’s okay,” Corinne’s voice broke through her thoughts again, as he puffed up his fur to look larger. “They’ve got a long way to go, don’t they? So even if we can’t do it this time, we’ll have plenty of other chances.”

Sheena set her jaw and shook her head. “I’m not going to need other chances,” she replied firmly. “I’m going to take them down here and now, before they can get any further!” The longer it took, the more time they’d have to prepare and grow stronger, after all.

They might already be prepared. Sheena hadn’t told Corinne, but she’d tried to sneak into the Chosen’s room when they were staying at the inn in Triet. She’d had her knife in hand and everything, but… somehow, she’d been expecting the Chosen One to be a little more like Zelos, not a sweet-faced little girl. She’d hesitated a moment too long, long enough for the girl to open her eyes, and she’d had to flee rather than risk discovery. Even now, she wasn’t sure how much the girl had seen, how prepared their quarry would be for an attack.

It didn’t matter, she told herself, shifting into a ready stance for the ambush as she heard voices beginning to approach the head of the trail. For the sake of her honor, her village, and her world, Sheena Fujibayashi would kill the Chosen of Sylvarant… or die trying.


	8. Interlude - Kratos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As they leave the Ossa Trail, Kratos Aurion considers the state of the worlds and the opposition faced by the Chosen One.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, Kratos is right there with the party at this point, and it's not a chapter-chapter because he's working toward the same goal they are (today), but he's keeping enough back from them to make his perspective interesting, so I'm giving him an interlude as if he's an NPC.

As they left the Ossa Trail behind at last, Kratos was lost in thought. The children’s voices drifted back toward him, discussing the assassin they’d just faced, and he heard the Chosen One express a desire to befriend the woman the next time they met.

It was good, he thought, that even Colette was aware that they would need to face her again, since she’d escaped them this time. He’d deal with her illusions of befriending the assassin when the time came… but most likely, the assassin herself would take care of that. Despite her clumsiness, she’d chosen the timing of her initial attack well, and it was largely Colette’s remarkable fortune that had averted a swift disaster. Kratos was sure the woman wouldn’t be so careless a second time. He’d have to be more carefully on guard in the future.

He would have been watching more carefully this time, had he had any reason to suspect an assassin of this nature. Professor Sage had remarked on her clothing as well, and while Kratos couldn’t begin to guess what it meant to Raine, he knew the traditional dress of a Mizuho ninja when he saw it. This was alarming on multiple levels - he’d told them that there were those who rejected salvation, a vague enough answer to satisfy, but more likely this was exactly the opposite situation: someone in Tethe’alla wanted to preserve the salvation of their own world, at the cost of this one.

The problem, of course, was that Tethe’alla was not supposed to know about Sylvarant or the structure of the two worlds, any more than Sylvarant was. If it became widely known that Sylvarant was not mythical, and that the worlds exchanged places in a cycle of flourish and decline, the unrest could reach proportions that would stagger even Cruxis’ ability to suppress it. He hadn’t heard of any such disorder yet, which was good, but the mere fact that the information was out there was incredibly worrying.

There was also the issue of how she had crossed between the dimensions in the first place. The Tower was kept safe, but there was nothing they could do about the periodic activation of the Otherworldly Gate except encourage rumors that the place was unsafe or haunted, and do their best to keep a watch on it. Kratos knew that others had made their way through it in the past, but the timing of its activation was also not something that should be widely known… outside the ranks of Cruxis itself, at least. Combined with the assassin’s mere presence here, the only conclusion was that someone within Cruxis itself was leaking information to Tethe’alla, with the intent of disrupting the Journey of Regeneration.

Kratos sighed harshly, and scowled at a nearby tree trunk. Yuan was making himself difficult to ignore. Officially, Kratos didn’t know anything about what Yuan got up to when he was away from Derris-Kharlan, or who led the mysterious Renegades that kept interfering with Desian activities. Thus far, for the most part, Lord Yggdrasill had been content to let the Grand Cardinals handle the problem, and Kratos hadn’t done anything to encourage him otherwise.

Unofficially, he’d noticed that reports of Renegade activity had increased any time Yuan was away from Vinheim for an extended period of time, and that was without even mentioning the staggering number of coincidences that had occurred during his flight with Anna fourteen years ago, when the Desians chasing them had been distracted by these imposters time and time again. When questioned, Yuan had shrugged his shoulders and claimed they were simply destined to be together… but Kratos knew his friend had never believed in anything like fate.

Kratos also knew Yuan had been unhappy with Mithos’ methods and choices for quite some time - he might be able to conceal his displeasure in front of Lord Yggdrasill, but he wasn’t nearly as good at lying to someone who knew him better, and lately Mithos only heard what he wanted to hear in any case. Learning that Yuan had found some outlet for that displeasure could hardly surprise Kratos. Yuan had never been one to sit idle if there was any option available for taking action.

...Still, for now all of that was unnecessary speculation. Kratos had never seen direct evidence of Yuan’s involvement with the Renegades, and he wasn’t about to go looking for it now. He’d even deflected all conversation about what Lloyd had found inside the ‘Desian’ base when he’d been captured, in case he learned something he didn’t want to officially know. He owed Yuan at least that much, for his past actions… and even if he didn’t, traveling with his son was beginning to spark the same doubts he had thought laid to rest fourteen years ago. It might well be that he would need Yuan’s help again before much more time passed.


	9. Palmacosta - Magnius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnius, lord and master of the Palmacosta Ranch, is furious at having the Angelus Project slip from his grasp. Fortunately, his close friend and ally Rodyle has a plan to help.

“All right, that’s enough,” Magnius growled at the healer, as soon as he felt the bandages tighten around the wound the swordsman had inflicted.

The healer held his ground a moment longer. “Sir, if I don’t use healing magic now, it’ll scar as it closes.”

“Do I look like I care if I get another scar?” the Grand Cardinal snarled in response, and the man backed away, apparently not willing to push the issue if it meant earning a few scars of his own.

Magnius was still fuming as he stomped his way to the control room. It should have been impossible, for a mere human to be that strong without the Desians having heard something about him, especially one who felt like mana, but there hadn’t been anything in their records about an Exsphere-bearing human mercenary working in this area.

But more important than who the man was was what he’d said. _“Let us respect the wishes of the Chosen One.”_ Magnius could still feel the weight of the red eyes that had bored into him as the man said it, as if he was trying to convey a message… and it was one that had come across loud and clear. For whatever reason, the boy who bore Kvar’s Angelus Exsphere was traveling alongside the Chosen One, and that would make recovering it far more difficult. Killing the boy and making the Chosen suffer the loss of a friend would certainly accelerate the development of her Cruxis Crystal, but the risk of killing the Chosen One as well was too great as long as they were traveling together, and Lord Yggdrasill wouldn’t hesitate to kill him for undoing sixteen years of work.

Magnius knew that planning ahead wasn’t his strength - he was a man of action, not a strategic thinker, so it only made sense to consult the advice of an ally who was better at composing plans. He strode through the doors of the control room, crossing to the communicator in just a few strides, and slapped the button that would call to the Remote Island Ranch.

An image of Rodyle fuzzed into view. “Lord Magnius!” he cried with insincere glee. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Can it, Rodyle,” Magnius growled, in no mood for Rodyle’s verbal sparring today. “We’ve got trouble with the Angelus Project.”

Rodyle grinned sharply. “Oh~? I had heard he was moving into your area. Don’t tell me the boy’s proved too much for you after all!”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Magnius replied, scowling at the diminutive scientist. “If it was that simple, I’d have slaughtered him already. But now the little brat’s gone and hidden himself behind the Chosen One. I don’t want to find out what Lord Yggdrasill would do to someone who killed her in a crossfire, do you?”

Rodyle’s eyes widened behind his tinted glasses in a dramatic display of surprise. “Oh, but haven’t you heard? It turns out this Chosen One has been declared unsuitable after all!”

That was news to Magnius. “I hadn’t heard,” he admitted grudgingly. “I only just returned to the base. So the girl is fair game, then?”

“We’re free to dispose of her at any time,” Rodyle agreed with a nod. “In fact, I’m jealous - you’ve already got her in your area, and I’m sure Lord Yggdrasill will reward whoever does the job.” He looked pensive for a moment, tapping his chin. “What if I offered you a plan to help, in return for letting me be the one to turn in her Cruxis Crystal? I’ll tell Lord Yggdrasill that I was the one to find her, and you can still turn in the Angelus crystal for that reward. What do you say?”

Magnius took a moment to consider this offer. “That sounds fair...as long as your plan is easier than just hunting them down.” Which was what Magnius had fully intended to do, of course.

“Oh, much.” Rodyle’s grin widened further. “You won’t have to go anywhere - they’ll come right to you. All you have to do is start with a raid on Palmacosta…”

As Rodyle continued to detail his plan, Magnius’ grin began to widen until it matched his ally’s. Raiding Palmacosta and taking prisoners from the defiant city would be satisfying enough, but even more so would be taking down the Chosen One and the boy who’d taken the Angelus Project, all in one blow. _If I’m lucky, Lord Yggdrasill will promote me above that bitch Pronyma for this._


	10. Palmacosta - Dorr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Desians are cruel and merciless, and Governor-General Dorr of Palmacosta is trapped in their web too tightly to ever shake himself free now.

_My father was a fool._

There was little that Governor-General Dorr was as sure of as that, in these wicked days. His father had been a fool to disobey and struggle against the Desians. The people of the city had called him a hero for it, but he’d paid the price for that title when they killed him.

 _No, rather, he left his family to pay the price for him. And it’s far more than we can afford._ Dorr scowled at the bags of cash he’d brought with him to the clandestine meeting. Most of it was not his to give, but he’d had no choice in taking it.

 _I never had a choice. No one ever gave me one. I never wanted any of this, but no one ever asked what I wanted._ Had it been Dorr’s choice to begin with, he would have chosen to live in peace with his wife and child, even if it meant being under the thumb of the Desians; and every day he spent bearing the burden of his father’s foolishness reinforced that his choice was the only correct one. It was all well and good to cry freedom and bandy weapons about, but sooner or later someone would have to face consequences for it. In the end, despite his efforts, that so-called hero had left his family chained worse than ever, to debt and despair alike.

He heard heavy-booted footsteps coming down the stairs, and his young daughter Killia, the sole remaining light in his life, reached up to grasp his hand. He smiled vaguely down at her and squeezed her fingers reassuringly as his contact came into view.

The Desian’s face was as impassive as ever, but he scowled when he saw the amount Dorr had brought as payment. Dorr felt his face redden in shame - he’d done his best to gather that money, and to have his efforts dismissed without a word stung. As the Desian began to count the bags of Gald, Dorr decided he would have to be the one to begin the conversation. “When will my wife - when will Clara return to her original form?”

“Not yet,” the soldier growled, looking up from his work. “You still haven’t paid us enough Gald. You’ve been paying us less and less.”

Dorr knew it was the truth. He’d already used up most of his own resources, and now even the town’s coffers were beginning to bleed dry. Palmacosta would soon be seeing budget shortfalls in spite of everything he’d already done to make the money stretch. With the state the world was in, people simply didn’t have the money to give - not even to the Church. “This is the best I can do!” he pleaded. “The tolls, the municipal taxes, the offerings to the Church of Martel - there’s nowhere left to squeeze more money from!”

His contact just grunted. “Well, I suppose this will do...for today. I’m sure Lord Magnius will remove the demon seed depending on your next contribution.” And with that, he began gathering up his takings, apparently confident that Dorr truly had done his utmost in gathering the money for them. Killia huddled closer to his side in fear of the man, and Dorr rested a hand on her back protectively. All of this effort… surely it was worth all the struggle and lies, if it would give Killia a safe and peaceful life.

 _He's told me this before._ Some part of Dorr knew that the Desians would never give him the cure for his wife’s condition, even if such a thing existed. As long as he could keep giving them money, they’d keep trying to squeeze more out of him. He looked down at Killia, cuddled up close to his side. _Will they even chase my daughter to pay off my debt, when I’m gone?_

But there was nothing he could do except obey. He was trapped: if he stopped paying the money, they would only kill him, and then Killia would have no parents at all. Nor could he confess what he’d been doing all this time; the people of Palmacosta would turn on him, and no doubt they would tar his daughter with the same brush. There was no way forward except to continue down the path he was already on… and no path at all that would lead to the peaceful family life that was all he’d ever really wanted.


	11. Palmacosta Ranch - Magnius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is going exactly as Magnius had hoped; giving Rodyle the Chosen's Cruxis Crystal is a small price to pay for a plan that falls into place so thoroughly.

Magnius watched the group’s progress on the monitors with increasing satisfaction. _Those fools have no idea they’re walking right into our trap._ Dorr had been a useful pawn for a time, keeping the people of Palmacosta busy on the one hand and handing resources over to the Desians on the other. But his usefulness had been waning, as the people of Palmacosta became restless about using the skills they’d been learning to actually strike back at the Desians, and he’d been less and less able to scrape together the payments they’d been squeezing from him as well. The decision to sacrifice that pawn in order to lure the Chosen One and the Angelus Project’s bearer right into their base had been an easy one.

Right now, they were in the containment block. Magnius watched on the monitors as the prisoners’ cells were opened, releasing their captives. The recent captures from Palmacosta emerged first, still in good health since the Desians hadn’t yet had time to test their mana signatures and fit them with compatible Exspheres. A young brown-haired woman in a yellow dress seemed to have taken de facto charge of the group - the same girl who had had the gall to refuse service to his men when they were looking for supplies in town. _Apparently nearly hanging her mother wasn’t enough to break her spirit._

Not that that was all they’d done to her. Magnius pressed a couple of buttons on the arm of his chair, and zoomed in on her face. Chocolat was her name, and when she’d been brought to the ranch, they’d checked their databases on the population of Palmacosta for matches. It turned out that not only had her mother, Cacao, been the target of a recent raid, but her grandmother Marble had been taken a few years before. Marble had been sent off to the Iselia Ranch for Exsphere implantation, so on a whim Magnius had called to Forcystus to see what had become of her there.

 _And what a story it made._ He switched the view to the boy with the Angelus Exsphere - Lloyd Irving. He and his little half-elven friend had made quite a bit of trouble for Forcystus, it turned out, and faced appropriate retaliation. _How would dear, defiant Chocolat feel about her rescuers if she learned that they killed her poor grandmother?_

They were splitting into two groups. Magnius adjusted the screens to follow both of them. The prisoners were led by Dorr’s second, Neil. From what Magnius knew, the man had found out about Dorr’s split allegiances some time ago, and kept quiet for the sake of keeping the peace. _One official proclamation to the city will bring his authority crashing down around his ears._ Magnius made a mental note to see about that, once he’d gotten the prisoners back to the safety of the city. _Let him have a few days to think it’s over, then we’ll break him for good._

Most interestingly, Chocolat herself was leading the Chosen’s group deeper into the base. _Well, well. It looks like I might have the chance to tell her about her dear grandmother’s fate myself._ Magnius grinned viciously. Everything was going exactly as Rodyle had envisioned. This time next week, Cruxis would be announcing the death of the forsaken Chosen One, and the spirit of Palmacosta’s people would be utterly shattered.


End file.
